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My high school had a dress code that stipulated boys could not wear “muscle tees” to class. Of course we should be teaching kids that clothes – whatever kind- are just clothes and really not all that relevant when judging character. Content of my character not the length of my skirt or shirtsleeve, as it were. But, it’s high school. Teenagers. yada, yada, yada.

Sexist? How is this sexist? Are guys allowed to go to class in 80s running shorts? (No, please, I beg you!) Maybe the sexism comes in because stores want to mostly sell short shorts to girls while guys can easily find shorts that cover most of their thighs (and have functional pockets, but that’s a different longstanding gripe of mine). I feel for her. It can be hard aligning one’s clothing to a dress code, especially for those who are not of average build. But that’s no reason for schools to jettison dress codes. It’s totally unrealistic to think that teens would all dress in nondisruptive ways if left to themselves.

– She doesn’t like men staring at her sexual parts
– She’s decided that the solution is to expose as much of those sexual parts as she can legally do
– therefore, if those nasty men stare at her, and think about sex, it’s TOTALLY their fault

I know the solution – enroll her in a course in logic, and don’t let her out of it until she can explain why her “thinking” makes absolutely no sense.

Short-shorts don’t expose “sex parts”; they expose thighs – maybe some cheek if you got booty. And, she never said she doesn’t like men staring at her – maybe she does.

The reason women in the Middle East wear burkas is because if they didn’t men would stare at them and have nasty thoughts. The girl has a point: women and men aren’t responsible for the naughty thoughts of others.

That said, schools are fully justified in a reasonable dress code for everyone. The code should, and probably does, go beyond preventing too much skin. It probably addressing vulgar sayings on tee shirts and general cleanliness.

The dress code doesn’t sound much different than when I went to high school in the late 70’s, and the fingertip rule was in effect for shorts/skirts, though on Fridays, the cheerleaders, songleaders, and dance/drill team members wore some pretty distracting stuff 🙂

I’ve questioned the “cheerleader exception” before and was told that it’s an official school uniform. There is no reply to my follow-up, “Wrestling singlets and swimmer/diver/water polo Speedos are official school uniforms, too–for specific activities.”

There are school districts that don’t allow cheerleaders to wear their outfits on campus:

Jeana is a cheerleader. A sophomore, she wears her uniform to Countryside High School on game days along with the rest of the squad. Or she did until Friday, when the school decided its own uniform was against the dress code.

Several Pinellas County schools are restricting or banning their own cheerleading uniforms during classroom hours amid a broader crackdown on the student dress code.

More politically correct B.S. in my opinion. It’s not like they wear their outfits every day, and what about practice before or after school, the shorts our cheerleaders used to wear were pretty distracting in the gym, along with the t-shirts, etc.

It is working, in my experience. The girl’s response was hardly original–just one of the usual responses, from the crowd that wants no rules or hint of morality surrounding any sexual issue. They’re making any dress code controversial, which leads to them being abandoned. Things are moving in their direction. It’s working.